At age 17, Matty Laird’s first design would be a monoplane powered with an engine designed by Harry Wells. The two worked on their separate projects month after month in high school night classes. Matty’s airframe progressed, but Harry Wells was never able to devise a reliable valve mechanism for his engine. Thus Matty was left with an engineless airplane.
A Chicago machinist named Hofer offered him a 12 horsepower engine for $150. After several months of revamping his plane to accept the Hofer engine, Laird took his little single seat monoplane out to Cicero Field. To his surprise, up it came about 15 feet.
He had a very light airplane and a little too much speed, and somewhere in the series of bounces that followed, he crossed the controls and wound up on his back.
All Aero 